Mono Lake

We were staying on the west side of Yosemite about 5 miles outside the park.  One day we drove through the park to the other side. We ended up in a small town called Lee Vineing.  Lee Vineing is outside Yosemite but not by much.  It has a lake called Mono Lake that is fascinating.  For millions of years rain and snow melt filled this lake but a bubbling action formed towers of calcium carbonate under the surface.  Then in the 1920's the city of Los Angeles, some 300 miles away, decided to build a aqueduct/pipeline to bring the water to the city.  The lake has 2.5 times the salt of the ocean and is highly acidic.  So rather than take the lake water they took the streams that ran into the lake that had pure rain and snow run off.  The lake had been a major stop off for migrating birds and home to many other unique forms of wildlife.  But over the years the diversion of the water basically dried up the lake.  In the 1960's citizens began an effort to stop the water diversion and restore the lake.  After a major law suite an agreement was reached that LA could take only some of the water and only in normal or wet years.  The lake is nowhere near where it was before the diversion but it is coming back.

When the water level went down it reveled the giant columns of calcium carbonate.  We went down to the water and hiked along an area that used to be under water but now shows these magnificent formations.